


Brighter

by stitchcasual



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Pre-Relationship, model ship building as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 20:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13325442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: Shepard and Thane make their corner of the Normandy just a little brighter





	Brighter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hotot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/gifts).



> holiday fic exchange at the Writers Block  
> lov u bun <33

After the drell is situated in Life Support, a process handled by a few of her less xenophobic Cerberus crew, Shepard retires to her own cabin, intending to relax for a few minutes before handling the business around the Normandy that even Miranda, capable as she is, can’t tackle. Instead she finds herself unable to hold the quarter-finished Turian cruiser steady enough to attach more hull plating and switches the model kit out for a finger of liquor in a glass large enough that her shaking can’t tip any out the sides.

_ The universe is a dark place. I’m trying to make it brighter before I die. _

She’d be able to dismiss him from her mind if he was simply a dying drell with a hero complex, but it’s more than that, it runs deeper. Some of the liquor spills as she takes a sip, and she brushes the drops off her uniform before they can sink in. Cerberus uniform. She doesn’t have much left of the Alliance, of the years of her life she spent focused toward finding the right thing. Anything she had got incinerated along with the original Normandy. And now she’s working with the enemy in potentially the most misguided attempt to save the universe.

It’s his certainty, she thinks, setting the glass on the low table. She stretches her arms up toward the roof and bends sideways to the right and left, staring at the model of the Normandy SR-1 in the display case. Or, rather, at the box she hasn’t opened yet. For her, that hurt is still too near, too raw.

He didn’t hesitate taking out Nassana or her guards, or to confess himself wicked. Yet following that confession was the assertion she had not been able to forget:  _ I’m trying to make it brighter before I die. _ He could somehow balance the two. Perhaps he could teach her. 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

She brings the Turian cruiser with her the third time she sets foot in Life Support. A tray liberated from the mess hall holds all the pieces, with the page of instructions carefully tucked underneath the ship itself so it can’t fly away. Shepard sets the tray on the table in front of her as she sits down across from Thane. Neither of them speak as she folds her hands in a mimic of his and closes her eyes, her breaths slowly stabilizing as she focuses on the soft exhalations from the other side of the table and the low hum of the Normandy’s engines behind her.

Finally she opens her hands and her eyes, reaching for the cruiser without a word. Shepard can feel Thane’s eyes watching her, can almost hear the double-blink of his eyelids. Usually after a mission like the one they just came back from, Shepard debriefs with the mission crew then retires to her cabin where she builds on her models with just the eerie burbling of the empty fish tank to keep her company. But in her previous visits to Life Support, Thane had exuded such an aura of peace and calm, and she felt drawn to it as though she had finally found the center she’d been missing. 

She sorts through the pieces of the model in the tray, searching for the last bit of hull plating for the main body of the cruiser, glueing it carefully in place. As she holds the piece still, Thane inclines his head toward her a fraction before standing and moving around the small space that has become his home. In the nook with all his weapons, he has a kettle, such an incongruous thing that Shepard wonders that she never saw it before, and she watches as he touches it to life then gathers another mug from behind the kettle. When the water’s heated, he pours it into the mug and carries it back to the table, placing it beside the tray but close to Shepard. 

She nods her thanks, distracted in the search for the wing pieces. Building gives her something else to focus on while her brain processes the near-death scenario that they somehow, again, managed to evade and the few lives that had been lost despite their best efforts. Shepard had learned long ago that she could not actively force the process, couldn’t sit and stew about things after they happened or she’d run around in circles and accomplish less than if she let her brain handle them by itself for a little while before joining it.

Thane’s hand ghosts over the tray and one of the pieces she needs materializes in his upturned palm. She stares at it, then him, before grasping it in her thumb and forefinger and setting it in place. With her other hand, she reaches across and grabs the mug, sipping at the steeping tea. Thane has the next piece in his hand by the time she sets the mug down and turns to look for it.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Eventually it becomes a habit to stay in Life Support rather than her own quarters after a mission. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. When they talk, they discuss anything from the last mission they completed to the gardens on the Presidium that Shepard remembers from two years ago before Sovereign's attack. Occasionally Shepard brings a bottle of liquor to spike her tea; most times she leaves it on her desk. In fits and starts, she shares pieces of her life growing up on Earth and the fateful mission on Torfan. Thane listens, watches the twist of her lips when she spits the word “butcher,” and, on a few occasions, covers one of her hands with one of his. It’s a small gesture, but Shepard appreciates it nonetheless. She suspects he understands the loneliness that plagued her in the years after earning that name for herself.

Slowly, Thane opens up as well, freely answering any question she poses and finally offering his memories of Irikah and Kolyat without prompting. Shepard watches his head tilt as the memories overtake him, his eyes blinking more rapidly, and finds she both envies and pities him his perfect recollection. To be able to relive the moments of his greatest joys as well as his deepest sorrows...perhaps it is better that her memories fade with time. She dwells enough on her past mistakes without being able to recall them all in detail.

When they return to the ship after reuniting Thane and Kolyat, the closest thing to a victory Shepard has felt in quite a while, she lays her hand on Thane’s arm to let him know she’ll be along to Life Support in a few minutes. In her cabin, she hesitates a moment then snatches up the box before she can think twice and marches out to the lift.

Thane paces his room when she arrives and touches his arm again as they pass. Shepard prepares two mugs of tea and sits, coaxing Thane over to the table with a rattle of the model’s box. She can tell Thane isn’t ready to speak about what happened on the Citadel, and that’s fine by her. They’ve built themselves a stable routine here in this room, and words are the least important part of it. For now, she smiles as he covers her hand with one of his before she bites her lip and opens the box for the Normandy SR-1 model, spreading the pieces across the table. 


End file.
